KentGardener's Galanthus Blog 2012

[emma T]

If it gets really cold i shall be wearing my BRIGHT ORANGE stihl water proof !!!!!

[Hans J]

Emma ,

I'm glad that you are satisfied with this jacket 

Hans

[Maggi Young]

If it gets really cold i shall be wearing my BRIGHT ORANGE stihl water proof !!!!!

With the rather fab purple overtrousers, Emma?
 
Good for you..... bring some colour to the 'drop fiends' world  

[Mavers]

Thank you for all the photos John, lets those of us that couldn't go have a flavour of the day & see what a great time you all had.

Really appreciated.

[MargaretB]

Lovely photos John.  There I am in the queue chatting to John Foster.  Bang goes my anonymity!!!

It was a great day among so many happy friendly people and good to put names and faces together.  As a newbie, I discovered I have a great talent for spending and came home a very happy bunny with Priscilla Bacon, Mandarin, Sibbertoft Manor, Anne of Geierstein, Alex Duguid, Marjorie Brown, Mark Solomon and Edith (I could't resist those green stripes, even if not every year as you say, John).

On 19th I'm off for a few days visiting Herts Hellebores, Waterperry, Colesbourne, Benington Lordship and Anglesey Abbey.  Is there anywhere else in the vicinity I simply mustn't miss?

[kentish_lass]

Margaret - you certainly got off on the right foot with those lovely plants.  I just love Edith and cannot wait for her to become more than one flower.  I notice Alex Duguid is a reginae olgae and I have not had much luck with them so far.  I will have a bash at growing them when I have enough to experiment with - my only two bulbs are in the greenhouse at the moment and still have not flowered.

You are certainly getting around to see some lovely places - maybe you would post some photos on here for us all to enjoy?  Have fun 

[Paddy Tobin]

People view things in different ways: I showed Mary John's photographs and what caught her eye was the lovely beech hedge at Myddleton House, how beautiful the house itself looked, the pyracantha hedge in John's garden and Jennie's handbag - and that was the best of them all.

What snowdrops?

Paddy

[kentish_lass]

and Jennie's handbag - and that was the best of them all.

Well, Mary can have my handbag in exchange for your secret on how to grow such healthy snowdrops.....directly into the ground 

[RichardW]

On 19th I'm off for a few days visiting Herts Hellebores, Waterperry, Colesbourne, Benington Lordship and Anglesey Abbey.  Is there anywhere else in the vicinity I simply mustn't miss?

let me know day & time you  plan to visit & will make sure you get to see the walled garden which is normally closed, hopefully the garden will have thawed out by then but it's been snowing again for a few hours  so at this rate I doubt things will be at their best til the end of the month.

[Brian Ellis]

Margaret - you certainly got off on the right foot with those lovely plants. 

You are well matched Jennie and Margaret, I wouldn't like to bet on who has acquired the largest number of new snowdrops this year   Your secret is out Margaret

[KentGardener]

Saturday 4th February evening

In the evening Hagen and Uli arrived from Germany to stay at my house for a few days before they ambled off to the Gala.  I had spent the last couple of weeks planning an interesting program of garden visits for the next few days.  Unfortunately the weather man was warning that the best made pans might fall apart....  

Pic 1 - Before my German guests arrived I whizzed round the back yard taking some cut flowers of galanthus so that we might have something to look at.  

Pic 2, 3, and 4 - Once Hagen and Uli were here we had a quick torchlight garden viewing and then resorted to our laptop slideshows and my books and magazines.

[KentGardener]

Sunday 5th February

We woke to a full blanket of snow!    

This morning there were meant to be 8 people arriving (from Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Kent) at my house for soup and a chat before we all went on to two other gardens in Kent.  Sadly everyone cancelled due to the weather and bad driving conditions.  

Hagen, Uli, Paul and myself had a hearty breakfast and then headed off to David and Anke Way (about 45 mins from me in Kent).  The roads were horrible and we had to detour twice but did eventually arrive just 15 minutes later than expected.  

The pictures in the following blogs are not going to be my usual 'snowdrop' snaps - but hopefully they may be of interest anyway.

1 - Did I wear the correct camo?  
2 - David was not up to a walking in this horrible weather so we took a quick photo, outside their backdoor, before the rest of us wandered off and he headed indoors.
3 - The garden was covered in snow - but Anke had a cold frame that she had covered with fabric in advance of our visit.
4 - Studying the covered drops
5 - Catkins
6 - Looking for the females
7 - Lichen
8 - Fantastic hedges made of upright posts a couple of feet apart and then the gap filled with surplus branches.
9 - Teasel in the wind
10 - Animal tracks

[KentGardener]

Considering how nasty the weather was we still somehow managed to spend over an hour wandering about in David and Anke's garden.  David did ask when we went back inside how we had managed to spend so long outside.   

1 - A rather cold seat!
2 - Frozen Pond - amazing shapes in the ice.  These were not shadows!
3 - Anke pointing out a feature of the garden to Hagen
4 - Hagen photographing a clump of snowdrops
5 - 'Percy Picton' peeping through
6 - Next door neighbour
7 - What would normally be a big drift of drops under a tree
8 - A hellebore determined to flower
9 - A small slump of snowdrops in the snow
10 - A view from the back fence

[KentGardener]

Eventually even the hardiest of us Galanthophiles were frozen solid and headed indoors for lots of hot drinks, cake and savoury snacks.  (and German beers  )

1 - A drop in the garden
2 - a frozen drop in the garden
3 - a yellow drop in the garden
4 - Flicking through some snowdrop items
5 - A new drop that the Ways found in a garden centre and are considering the merits of.

We knew that the day was going to be a 'wash out' because of the snow so I suggested Hagen took his Projector and laptop to show some of the wonderful pictures I had seen the previous evening of Hagen's expeditions abroad.  At David and Anke's we enjoyed sharing a trip to Turkey and were also privileged to enjoy wild nivalis populations in Poland.

6 - Setting up a presentation
7 - Looking at the first of Hagen's slides from Turkey.
8 - David enjoying a German beer.  (I have tasted a lot of German beer this weekend as there were 2 crates of it in their camper van  )
9 - Enjoying the wonderful booklet of Hagen's plants and classification system that he brought to England as a gift to give out and discuss in gardens that he visited.

[art600]

John

Thanks for the postings.

I was so sorry to miss meeting Hagen and Uli, your soup - always delicious, and meeting David and Anke.  As you found the roads were quite treacherous and I even had trouble getting out of my road.

Maybe next year in brilliant sunshine to visit David and Anke.